If you liked the original Call of Duty, then you're sure to enjoy the sequel, which stays true to the strengths of its predecessor, while enhancing the sense that you're just one soldier in the midst of a massive war machine.
As in the first game, Call of Duty 2's campaign will put you in the shoes of a few different soldiers fighting for different Allied factions. You start off as a private in the Russian army, viciously fighting off the invading Germans in Moscow and Stalingrad. The British campaign is unlocked after beating the first Russian mission. For most of these missions you'll be fighting in the sand-swept deserts of North Africa alongside the Desert Rats against Field Marshal Rommel's troops. The final mission in the British campaign sends you to the bombed-out houses and hedgerows of Caen, France. After you're done with that, you'll play as an American corporal in Europe. Yes, you will be doing a D-Day landing, but not on Omaha Beach or Utah Beach, which you've probably played several times before. Instead, you'll be scaling the sheer cliffs of Pointe du Hoc as artillery with the Army Rangers.
The game paces itself so that you're always on your toes, and you'll find yourself switching back and forth almost constantly from an offensive position to making a defensive stand against counterattacks on the objective you've just captured. Yes, at the end of the day you're still just shooting a lot of Nazis, but the constantly varying contexts of how and why you're doing it keep the game compelling from start to finish.
The designers of the game have done a good job with the artificial intelligence - which appear in the shape of allied & enemy general infantry. Your allies will follow you in and help you clear out the objective. Of course, if you're apprehensive about attacking and pressing your advantage, the enemy AI is wily and aggressive enough to take charge. They're not afraid to pour fire on your position and toss tons of grenades at you. Thankfully, a handy grenade danger indicator lets you know when and where you have to scurry away from an impending blast.
One aspect of game play that has changed since the first Call of Duty is that you no longer have a health bar. As you get shot, you'll see the screen growing more and more red along the borders and your character will start to grunt and pant. If you continue to take damage in a short span of time, you die. So as you get shot that first or second time, you need to get yourself back to cover and hide for a couple of seconds to recover. Once your vision clears, you're good to go again. Some people may be put off by this, but it actually works very well here, and it really is no more contrived than hunting down and hoarding health packs.
In the context of Call of Duty 2, I would go so far as to say that it's an improvement over the traditional health system, as you never find yourself at a tough checkpoint without enough health or medikits. Ammo's never an issue either, as there's never a shortage of dead bodies to loot for guns, bullets, and grenades. The focus stays squarely on the fight.
The other major change in game play is the use of smoke grenades. You can pop these in front of machine-gun nests or to obscure the view of enemy snipers, making infantry charges a more viable option. The smoke effect looks outstanding and comes in handy in neutralizing the effectiveness of fixed machine-gun nests and snipers. There's also nothing quite as exciting as running through a dense smoke cloud and finding yourself face-to-face with the enemy.
The game's graphics are also great, particularly the smoke effects from smoke grenades and explosions, as well as the fantastic amount of detail put into both the indoor and outdoor environments across a wide variety of landscapes. Textures can sometimes be a little less sharp when looking at vehicles or character models up close. But since most of the game is so fast and chaotic anyway, you don't notice much. The in-game sound effects are fantastic. Speech is also pretty good, particularly the yelling that your squadmates and enemies do during battle, which plays right into your excitement and tension as you fight.
In conclusion, if you liked the original Call of Duty, then you're sure to enjoy the sequel, which stays true to the strengths of its predecessor. However, the sequel does lack new material (I personally thought the original Call of Duty was a little bigger and more varied). If you liked the original and have been thirsting for more, Call of Duty 2 will definitely deliver that.
